Mission statement

Tomorrow’s wilderness

The national park protects a biosphere of European importance – the acidophilous copper beech forest and its natural dynamics. Tomorrow’s wilderness develops in the national park without human intervention, in line with the motto “Let nature be nature”. The national park’s ordinance which allows for process conservation on more than 90% of the area therefore fulfils the central criterion for the international recognition in category II by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN).

“The protective purpose is to preserve the natural and near-natural ecosystems with their typical animal and plant species as well as their rocks and soils and, in the long-term, to leave them to their own development and dynamics subjected exclusively to natural environmental conditions. Thus allowing a natural development (process conservation) …” (sec. 2 of the ordinance governing the Kellerwald-Edersee National Park).